Mana leader Hone Harawira has filed for a recount of the votes in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate.

He lost the seat on election night to Labour’s Kelvin Davis by a margin of 739 votes, and has refused to concede defeat since. His party has concerns about votes that were rejected.

Harawira admitted on TVNZ’s Marae programme that his refusal to concede defeat was a tactic to stretch out the use of his parliamentary perks and pay packet.

“One of the good things about not conceding, for those of you in politics, is if you concede on the night all your travel benefits stop at 12 o’clock,” Harawira said.

“If you don’t [concede], you get to fly round the country and go and see all your people for the next two weeks.”

Say a lot doesn’t it. But he actually got it wrong.

But a spokeswoman for Parliamentary Services confirmed declaration day was typically the date at which parliamentary travel entitlements were cut off for former MPs, regardless of whether they’ve conceded.

“Travel benefits cease for former members on the day they resign or on polling day, if they do not stand, or on declaration day if they stand and are unsuccessful,” she said.

Declaration day was Saturday, when the commission announced the formal election result with the count of the special votes.

So the recount won’t get him extra votes. So why is he doing it? Spare money from Kim to burn?

Mana general secretary Gerard Hehir said the party had some concerns over the way some votes were discounted.

“Particularly around special votes,” he said.

“We understand almost 1000 special votes have been rejected and we’ve just got a lot of concerns irrespective of whether it changes the outcome or not.

There is no way a majority of 700+ will change with the recount. The general rule of thumb is only do a recount if under 200 votes.

Senior Labour Party MPs have used social media to attack the alliance struck between Mana and the Internet Party.

Former leaders Phil Goff and David Shearer, and Rimutaka MP Chris Hipkins, are among those who have objected to the deal. It could see MPs from Kim Dotcom’s fledging political vehicle enter Parliament on the ‘‘coat-tails’’ of a victory for Hone Harawira in Te Tai Tokerau.

The strong opposition from within Labour could make post-election coalition talks tricky.

Goff says he feel strongly about Dotcom’s ‘‘pure political opportunism’’, citing his previous donations to ACT MP John Banks, now the subject of a court case. ‘‘He wants to be able to influence and control politicians.’’

Goff has it in one.

Goff says he made his feelings clear to the Labour caucus. ‘‘It will be the decision of the party leadership…but I see problems in creating a coalition where the philosophies and principle of people that you are trying to enter into a coalition with is unclear because they seem to be coming from diametrically opposed positions.’’

Those views were also reflected in a passionate Facebook post at the weekend. Shearer also used the social media site to write that although he wished the Internet-Mana ‘‘marriage’’ well, he knew ‘‘it’s going to end badly.’’

And on Twitter last week, Hipkins posted: ‘‘The good old days, when political parties formed from movements. Now all it takes is a couple of million and some unprincipled sellouts.’’

All three MPs were linked to the Anyone But Cunliffe [ABC] faction – who were opposed to David Cunliffe assuming leadership of the party. However, a Labour source played down talk of more division, saying all three were close to Te Tai Tokerau candidate Kelvin Davis.

They want to stop Davis being told to lose the seat. That doesn’t mean Davis will be withdrawn – it will be more subtle than that. Their fear is he will be told to tone down his rhetoric, and to not push too hard.

The reality is he can win the seat if he pushes hard enough for it. Harawira’s effective taking of $3 million from Dotcom will go down badly with many Te Tai Tokerau constituents. David only needs to win 500 over to take the seat off Harawira.

A poll of Maori voters indicates Mana Party leader Hone Harawira (below) could face a challenge in his Te Tai Tokerau electorate seat.

The full results of the nationwide TVNZ Marae Investigates DigiPoll survey of 1000 voters will be released this morning.

In results released to the Weekend Herald of 93 Te Tai Tokerau voters polled, 30 per cent said they would vote for Labour candidate Kelvin Davis, compared with 28.6 per cent for Mr Harawira.

About 22 per cent said they would vote for Maori Party candidate Waihoroi Shortland.

The first thing to note is 93 voters is very small for a poll. I don’t like samples under 300. At 93 the margin of error is 10.4%, so a gap of 1.4% between the candidates is not statistically significant. In fact it is only 57% probable that Davis is ahead.

Also worth noting that a poll before the by-election showed Hone leading by just 1% and in fact he won by around 8% or so. That poll was from a different company, but is another reason to be cautious of reading too much into this poll.

… party leader Phil Goff said Davis “was able to take a Maori seat with the largest majority and make it the most marginal Maori seat”.

Really?

Te Tai Tokerau’s majority was 6,308. Tamaki Makaurau was 7,540, Te Tai Hauauru was 7,817 and Waiariki was 6,812. So Goff is massively wrong – Hone did not have the largest majority – it was 4th out of 7.

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With only three polling booths to report, it is clear Hone has won re-election. His majority is 761 at this stage.

Hone got 48% of the vote, which is close to an absolute majority, not just a plurality. It is down from the 62% at the general election, but still a reasonable result.

Kelvin Davis and Labour will be pretty pleased to have got 41% and reasonably close. But they will be a bit nervous about what attacks from their left they may endure from the Mana Party. They will be hoping Mana targets Maori Party voters rather than left wing voters.

Mana is now a parliamentary party, and will be in Parliament after the next election. They can now campaign for party votes and tell people a vote for them is not a wasted vote.

Mana in Parliament may be an issue for both Labour and National. Labour doesn’t want the competition for the votes, but having Mana there might help a Labour-led Government get formed. If the election is so close that the support of Mana could decide the Government, then I have no doubt Labour will do a deal. My small anarchist tendencies would almost like to see Phil Goff managing a Government of Labour, Greens, Maori Party, Mana Party and NZ First.

So today is Hone’s victory – the gamble paid off. Attention will now go on the wider Mana Party, specifically their party list. Will the No 2 be John Minto or Annette Skyes or Sue Bradford or someone else?

UPDATE: Election Night majority is finalised at 867. 1,916 specials to be commented but will not change result unless Davis picked up 73% of them which will not happen.

It has become clear over the last couple of weeks that only Kelvin Davis can beat Hone Harawira. The Maori Party want him out of parliament even more than we do. That might explain their choice of a low profile candidate yesterday. As the Herald said :-

The great-grandfather was the surprise pick for the Maori Party, which also interviewed lawyer Mere Mangu and actor Waihoroi Shortland, tipped by many in the north as the frontrunner.

I agree with Trevor and the Herald that the selection of Tipene is a surprise and the other two candidates were much higher profile. It may well be that the Maori Party are being tactical here.

So if you don’t want John HartMinto to become an MP on the coat tails of Hone Harawira, you need to back Kelvin Davis to win. Even if you do not live in the electorate, you can make a donation to help Kelvin in his campaign. The details are:

Kiwibank Account No 38 9009 0235341 01

New Zealand Labour Party – Te Tai Tokerau LEC

Just make sure you mark it as a donation in the reference field for Internet Banking, so you don’t accidentially become a Labour Party member

The Maori Party candidate for the Te Tai Tokerau byelection will be selected today, with movie actor Waihoroi Shortland one of the leading prospects.

Mr Shortland, lawyer Mere Mangu and Whangarei Maori Party official Solomon Tipene will be interviewed at Waitangi today by a panel of eight. …

Mr Shortland, a charismatic and articulate former journalist known to many as “Wassie”, is a reo expert with connections to all of the major northern iwi. He starred in the movie Boy and has had a long career in Maori media.

Ms Mangu will provide strong competition. The leading voice for Tai Tokerau women, she comes with a significant degree of homegrown support and is known to stand and speak at Te Tii Marae at Waitangi.

However, her past unsuccessful attempts for the seat in 2002 and 2005, when she fought hard but finished off the pace as an independent, could be an important factor those on the panel will weigh.

Mr Tipene has less of a profile and ranks as an outside chance.

The stronger the Maori Party candidate, the more chance there is Labour could come through the middle and win the seat – which in this rare case is desirable.

Mangu got 7% of the vote in 2005 as an Independent. That is very high for an Independent.

Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira may have to return to Parliament as an independent if he wins the by-election in his electorate, because his new Mana Party has only just applied to be registered.

He announced his resignation on Wednesday, to be effective from May 20, and is walking a fine line to get his party registered in time to qualify for extra parliamentary funding and to be recognised as a party leader in the House. Registration takes six to eight weeks and Mana lodged its application at 5pm yesterday. The by-election is set for June 25.

The more important date is actually Tues 31 May, when nominations close.

However things could get murky. If the Mana Party is not registered by 31 May, he can not be a candidate for it. But he arguably could still list Mana Party on the ballot paper as an unregisterd party or affiliations, just like a candidate can label themselves “Communist League” even though that is not a registered party.

Now if Harawira is allowed to list Mana Party on the ballot paper as an unregistered affiliation, then I doubt that will qualify as being elected as an MP for that party – even if the Mana Party does get registered between 31 May and 25 June.

John Pagani looks at whether Labour should stand in the by-election. One of his reasons againgst is:

Even if Labour wins, we just get a re-run of the unhelpful list issues that followed Darren Hughes’ resignation. Kelvin Davis would have to be the candidate. He is absolutely top drawer as a candidate and MP and he will walk all over Hone. He speaks directly to Maori aspiration for better opportunity for their kids. So Mana won;t be able to attack Kelvin. Instead, opponents will run a ‘vote Kelvin get Mahara, or Dave Hereora, or even Lesley Soper’ line. They’re all nice people, but they don’t have a constituency in Te Tai Tokerau.

There is a simple solution to this issue – not fill the list vacancy if Kelvin Davis wins the by-election. Under s136 of the Electoral Act the House by 75% majority can resolve not to fill the list vacancy as it is within six months of the election. I doubt anyone would disagree that it would be silly to bring someone in on the list for less than 20 sitting days.

Another option would be that Kelvin Davis simply doesn’t resign as a List MP. He wouldn’t get two salaries or two votes, but it would mean no list vacancy is triggered.

Balanced against all that though is a pretty big consideration: Labour would probably win, and in doing so it would knock Mana out of politics.

Labour and the Greens can’t afford to bleed a lazy one or two per cent to Mana, and both have an interest in minimising endless attacks from the tiny, but voluble, left. Taking out Mana in the by-election fixes an irritant.

Second, campaigns lift morale and therefore increase the total contributions the party can call on.

Managed the right way, total campaign energy is not a limited resource to be carefully apportioned between campaigns; If you do well in one hard fought campaign, then you inspire more enthusiasm. More people turn out everywhere to help. Enthusiasm is not a given, but in well-run campaigns this always happens. After all, fighting election campaigns is what political parties do.

So if Labour backs itself to do a good organisational job, then the campaign could be worthwhile despite the potential cost.

Despite that, though, I think they’ll decide it’s best to stick to the main game.

Kelvin Davis is one of Labour’s future stars, and as Pagani says could do very well in the by-election. And if they don’t knock Mana out, then they face having John Minto sitting as an MP on their side of the house.

“I want to recall the $36 million being wasted on a bloody yacht race in San Francisco and spend it instead on heating in the poorer suburbs of Christchurch,” Harawira said.

I agree on not funding the America’s Cup bid but sadly the last Labour Government signed a contract forcusing us to do so. However we do have a choice over whether to have an un-necessary by-election, and the $500,000 wasted could also be used heating homes in Christchurch or even in Northland.

Parliament can only resolve not to have a by-election if the resignation occurs within six months of Parliament automatiically dissolving (22 May) or the announced election date (26 May).

If Helen Clark was still in power, I seuspect she’d be tempted to retrospectively amend the Electoral Act so that the six month period is extended to seven months. Then Hone would be out of Parliament and unable to use taxpayer funding to set up his new party.

The $500,000 costs may be on the light side. As this is a Maori seat, they will need many more polling places than in a general seat by-election.

What really peeves me about this also, is that the new Mana Party is obviously totally backed by the UNITE union – the very same union that doesn’t even pay its taxes – in fact has collected PAYE tax off its staff and failed to pay it to the Government as legally obliged. So they are campaigning on how people should pay more tax, and they don’t even pay tax themselves.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia – currently in Russia for a conference – said she did not know if the party was standing a candidate in the byelection.

But she did much the same as Harawira before the 2005 election: quitting Labour and resigning her Te Tai Hauauru electorate to renew her mandate in a byelection.

Not quite the same at all. Turia resigned in May 2004 – well over a year before the September 2005 election.

Labour won the party vote easily in all seven Maori seats. Their party vote ranged from 45% to 57%, and the Maori Party ranged from 21% to 34%. Waiariki was closest with an 11% gap and Ikaroa-Rawhiti had a 31% gap.

In 2005 Labour ranged from 49% to 58% and Maori Party from 18% to 31% so not much change on the party vote.

National in 2005 got from 2.7% to 7.4% in the Maori seats. In 2008 it was from 5.5% to 10.9% so a very small improvement there.

The electorate votes we start from Te Taik Tokerau in the North. Hone Harawira won it by 3,600 in 2005 over Dover Samuels. This time he has a 5,500 majority.

Pita Sharples evicted John Tamihere from Tamaki Makaurau by 2,100 in 2005 and holds it over Louisa Wall by a massve 6,300.

In Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell won by 2,900 in 2005. In 2008 he doubles that to 6,000.

Nanaia Mahuta held onto Tainui by 1,860. The boundary changes to Hauraki-Waikato did not favour her, so she did well to hold on by 1,046.

In Te Tai Hauauru, Tariana Turia won by 5,000 in 2005 and this time he rmajority is almost 7,000.

The big battle was in Ikaroa-Rawhiti. Parekura held off Atareta Poananga by 1,932 in 2005, and Poananga’s former partner, Derek Fox, challenged in 2008. But Fox fell short by 1,609.

Finally in the South, Te Tai Tonga was held by Mahara Okeroa in 2005 by 2,500. New Maori Party candidate Rahui Katene beat him by 684 votes in 2008.